by Tee O'Fallon
“So, girlfriend.” Daisy breezed into the kitchen and set the bag onto the counter. She went straight for the cabinet housing the one crystal vase Alex owned and began filling it with water from the sink. “We haven’t had the time to catch up in person, so I thought we could use some one-on-one. One of my new girls is covering the shop for a couple hours, so let’s make the most of it.”
“I’ve missed you.” Alex hugged her friend from behind.
Daisy set the vase on the counter and turned to give Alex an equally emphatic and much-needed hug. “I know. Me, too.”
Alex’s shoulders shook and the tears began to flow freely. In seconds, she was clinging to Daisy, crying out all the pain, fear, and anguish of the last few weeks.
“Oh, girlfriend.” Daisy held her tightly, stroking her hair. “Let it out. I knew there was so much more going on than you told me.”
Eventually, when Alex had no more tears to shed, she gave Daisy a squeeze, grateful her best friend had come by at the right moment. She hadn’t even realized until now how much she’d been holding inside.
“Here.” Daisy plucked several tissues from a box on the counter. “You sit while I get lunch on the table, then we can talk. And this time you will tell me everything. No holding back. Okay?” Alex nodded then blew her nose into a tissue. “First, we eat. Domenico’s eggplant lasagna can always bring a smile to a girl’s face.”
Alex laughed mid-sniffle. “Thanks, I needed that.”
“It will pass.” Daisy guided her to a chair. “As horrible and gut-wrenching as it feels right now, one day it will pass. You know it’s true, just as you know one day you’ll meet someone else.”
“Maybe.” Alex sat at the table. Maybe not. “I’d really hoped, I thought… I was so in love with him, but he couldn’t understand. He doesn’t have it in him. He’s unbendable to a fault. The very thing that makes him a good cop, makes it impossible for him to forgive what I’ve done.”
Daisy set plates of steaming lasagna onto the table and sat beside Alex. “What you did was protect your son. If Gray can’t see that, he doesn’t deserve you and it wasn’t meant to be. Sometimes love can conquer all. Sometimes it can’t.”
Alex laughed bitterly. “It sure isn’t the fairy tale it’s supposed to be. Look at us, both yearning for men who don’t want us.”
Daisy’s face went blank, leaving Alex to believe she’d touched a seriously tender nerve. When her friend grabbed a fork and knife and began cutting up her lasagna like she wanted to kill it, Alex instantly regretted what she’d said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up an unpleasant subject for you.”
“You didn’t.” Daisy crammed a mouthful of food into her mouth and chewed. After swallowing, she pointed her fork at Alex. “I’m usually a good judge of men. I thought Dom and I really connected. I never felt that way about a man before, and I never had sex with one after knowing him for only four hours. That was stupid. At least you and Gray really had something, you know? If he hadn’t turned out to be such a jerk, I believe you guys could have had something good.”
“Me, too.” Alex began to eat, although the lasagna she normally had culinary orgasms over tasted like cardboard.
Her cell phone rang. A quick glance at the screen said it was Nicky’s school calling. Alex’s first thought was that he’d spiked a low-grade fever, which happened sometimes during the few days preceding his next treatment. “Hello?”
“Ms. Romano, this is Principal McNally at Nicky’s school.” Alex froze. From the alarmed tone of the woman’s voice, she instantly knew something was wrong. “I—I don’t know how else to say this. Nicky is missing.”
Alex stood so abruptly, the chair she’d been sitting on toppled to the floor behind her. “Missing?” That one word conjured up every mother’s nightmare.
“Yes. I don’t know how this happened. I called the police, and they should be here any minute. I have a technician pulling up footage from all the cameras covering the school property. You should come here right away and bring a recent photo of Nicky for the police to use.”
“I’ll be right there.” She hung up and sucked in gulp after gulp of air. Her heart galloped in her chest. She was on the verge of hyperventilating.
“Alex. Alex!” Daisy grabbed her arm. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“Nicky’s missing. I have to go to the school.” Alex looked around the kitchen, not really knowing what she was searching for.
Shock. I’m in shock.
She blew out long, slow breaths, trying to smash down her escalating panic. She brushed past Daisy and ran into the living room. “I have to find a photo…of Nicky…to give to the police.”
“I’m going with you.” Daisy grabbed her handbag. “I’ll call Gray. I know you don’t want to talk to him or see him, but maybe he can help.”
“No.” The mention of Gray’s name snapped Alex out of her terrified stupor. “He’s out of our lives, and this has nothing to do with him. The school called the police, and they have experts who find missing children. That’s not Gray’s expertise. There’s nothing he could do that they can’t.”
“Alex, I don’t think this is the time to—”
“Don’t you dare call him.” Alex grabbed a photo album from a shelf. “Go downstairs and get us a taxi.”
In seconds, Daisy had her coat on and was out the door. Alex went directly to the back of the album for the most recent school photo of Nicky she knew was on the last page.
“It’s here,” she muttered. Her hands were shaking so badly now she was barely able to turn the pages. “It’s got to be here.” Finding what she was after, she yanked the photo from the plastic sheath and shoved it into her pocketbook.
She ran to the door, flung it open, and slammed it shut behind her. Once outside, she realized she’d forgotten to grab a coat.
Daisy stood at the curb next to a yellow taxi. At seeing Alex, she hastily shoved her phone into her pocket and opened the rear door of the car. They both got into the backseat.
“Please, hurry,” Alex said to the taxi driver after reciting the school’s address. Her voice was shaky and sounded panicked. I am panicked. “My son is missing.” Tires screeching, the driver floored the taxi down the street, braked at the red light, then made an illegal left turn.
Daisy looked at Alex, her forehead creased in concern. “I hate to say this, but do you think this is connected to everything else that’s been going on? This can’t be a coincidence. Can it?”
“I don’t know.” Or do I?
Alex squeezed her eyes shut, willing this all to be a bad dream she would wake up from any second. She dug her nails into her pocketbook, twisting the soft leather between her hands.
Again her breath came in quick gasps.
Please, let this all be a giant mistake, that Nicky was playing hide-and-seek outside and he’ll be there when I get to the school.
Deep in her soul she knew it wasn’t a mistake.
Something that happened back in the barn before Fatima started the fire niggled at her memory, something she’d all but forgotten about.
Right after she’d refused to cooperate and identify security locations on the One PP blueprints, Fatima did something on her cell phone. Alex vividly recalled the evil, satisfied look on the woman’s face. What could the bitch have done?
Alex leaned forward to talk through the open sliding glass divider between the driver and the backseat. “Can you go any faster?”
“I’ll try.” He began zigzagging through the thickening traffic.
She leaned back against the seat, her mind spinning with horrific scenarios.
Nicky hurt and alone.
Nicky in the hands of twisted, perverted criminals.
Her son—dead.
Daisy clasped her hand and squeezed it. “They’ll find him. Have faith that they’ll find him.”
She wanted to believe that but couldn’t. What she did believe was exactly what she’d garnered from her extensive pre-employment research into police investigations. I
f Nicky had really been kidnapped, time was of the essence. The more time that passed after an abduction the less likely the abductee would be found alive.
Her stomach roiled from the few bites of lasagna. She couldn’t, no—wouldn’t—think the worst.
Alex’s entire world was crashing down around her. If she lost Nicky, she didn’t know how she could go on.
…
Gray rested both hands on the shower wall, letting his head fall forward. The hot, pounding spray offered soothing but temporary relief from what he’d done to his body over the last two weeks. Two weeks during which time he’d gone against his bone-deep instinct to drive like a madman to Alex’s apartment, take her in his arms, and never let go.
The first week, he spent his nights drowning in a bottle of scotch. After deciding that alcohol would never take the place of what was missing in his life—Alex—he opted to purge his body and get back to working out at the gym two to three hours a day after he got off duty. The goal was to get his ass so exhausted that he would fall into bed without being overwhelmed by the loss that still plagued him every waking hour of the day.
Beneath the steamy spray, he groaned and rolled his aching shoulders. If his muscles could have talked, they would have told him what a damned waste of time it was to subject himself to that much pain, because no matter how much weight he pressed, how many reps he did, or how many miles he ran, he couldn’t run away from the truth.
I still want her. I still need her.
Hell, I love her.
His life wasn’t the same without Alex in it. It was dull, gloomy, and meaningless. Basically, it sucked.
He missed the way her smile lit up a room. Her beauty and grace outshined the insidious ugliness he encountered on the job every day. And she had enough passion in her to wake him every night in a cold sweat for the last two weeks. He’d dreamed that he was making love to her, driving himself inside her tight, wet heat as she moaned beneath him and dug her nails into his back.
But the attraction wasn’t all physical. He admired her.
She’d raised a great little boy all alone, working hard every day to not only earn a living but to pay for Nicky’s expensive medical treatments. Not once did she complain or ask for handouts. And her compassion and understanding where his own past was concerned astounded and humbled him. When he’d confessed to killing a woman in cold blood, there were no recriminations. She’d understood.
So what the hell is wrong with me that I couldn’t understand what she did?
Shit.
He’d been standing in the shower for so long, the spray was getting icy. Gray cranked the water off, grabbed a towel from the rack, and began rubbing himself dry with urgent, angry swipes.
Look at it logically, Yates. That’s what you’re good at, dipshit.
It was how he’d made more homicide arrests than any other detective in lower Manhattan. Analyzing every factual aspect of an investigation until it was a closed case. He was thorough and methodical, never leaving a stone unturned.
But life isn’t always methodical, and it doesn’t always make sense.
That’s what his father told him when he joined the NYPD. It was his dad’s way of warning him that his analytical response to everything didn’t take human nature into account.
Or human hearts.
Was that why his brain was telling him one thing, while his heart was still being an uncompromising, unyielding dick?
Yeah, Alex lied. Many times over, but never with the intention to hurt him or anyone else. It was always to protect her son. To prevent him from being discovered by his father. An evil man. A terrorist.
It was no secret that terrorist cells were at work right here in the United States, recruiting young people with bullshit propaganda. Based on what Alex described was happening to her husband, her instincts were dead-on. Her fears totally valid.
She hadn’t lied to get close to him or anyone in the NYPD, and her plan had never been to provide information to Jan Mohammed. It was to keep it from him.
So why the hell can’t I understand that?
Because she lied, and his cop brain told him that when someone was lying, they not only couldn’t be trusted but that he could never allow them into his life. Problem was, no matter how many lies Alex told, he still loved her.
As he draped the damp towel on the rack, it slammed home that he’d probably fallen in love at first sight, the day they’d met. But that was illogical. No one really fell in love in a moment. It took days, weeks, months, sometimes years to fall in love.
Didn’t it?
There was no explanation for it. He was stupidly, irrationally in love with her, and no amount of lies his methodical brain refused to make sense of, would ever change that.
I’m an idiot. I should have met her halfway. Should have tried to understand, and now it’s too late.
“Dammit.” He shoved his legs into his jeans, dreading his day off. One more day alone with his own thoughts and regrets and he’d go nuts. He was a hair’s breadth from punching a wall as it was.
Gray pulled a long-sleeved black polo shirt from a drawer when his cell phone began ringing. He stomped to the bedside table and grabbed the phone, resisting the urge to drown it in the toilet. “Yates,” he growled, not meaning to sound like such a shithead.
“Detective,” a familiar dispatcher said. “I have an urgent message from Daisy Fowler.” Gray narrowed his eyes. “Alex Romano’s son, Nicky, is missing from school. Ms. Fowler asked for you specifically and said to please meet them at the school right away.” The dispatcher began rattling off the address.
Gray clenched his fist around the shirt in his hand. “Shit.” He raced to the bed and threw aside the shirt, jamming his feet into a pair of boots. He couldn’t get dressed fast enough.
“Detective, do you need me to repeat the address of the school?” the dispatcher asked, making Gray realize he was so shocked by what he’d just heard that he still hadn’t responded.
“I know where it is.” With the phone cradled between his head and his neck, Gray began lacing his boots with fumbling fingers. His pulse raced and his head pounded. While there was always a chance Nicky had wandered away from school, his gut told him otherwise.
Focus, dammit!
His fingers were still being uncooperative. He took a deep breath to calm his inner rage and fear that were on the verge of eruption.
The school was out of his normal jurisdiction, and child abductions weren’t his area of expertise, but he didn’t give a shit. He hadn’t spent much time with Nicky, but he’d really come to care for the kid. No way could he sit on his ass while some piece of shit had Nicky.
“Who else is rolling on this?” He shoved one arm through a shirtsleeve, switched the phone to his other ear, then managed to tug the shirt over his head.
“Grimaldi and Shanahan.”
“Good.” He knew them from working a case together years ago. Both outstanding investigators and experts in child abductions. “Tell them I’ll meet them at the school.”
“Ten-four, detective.”
Gray finished dressing in record time then called Dom, who was on duty today.
“Hey, partner,” Dom answered on the second ring. “You pull your head out of your ass yet?”
“Pick me up at my apartment.” Gray shoved his shirt into his pants, somehow managing to strap on his belt and gun. “Nicky may have been kidnapped from school.”
“On my way.”
Gray caught the blare of Dom’s siren over the phone just before his partner ended the call. He went to the hallway closet, his mind spinning with concern and unanswered questions.
Alex would be going crazy with worry and grief. Nicky would be scared to death. The poor kid had already been through enough traumatic events to last him a lifetime. As for the questions pounding his brain…
Who kidnapped Nicky, and why?
This was too much coincidence not to be related to the Pyramid, but it didn’t make sense.
Dom�
��s intel had always been balls-on accurate, and with his military-spook background, Gray didn’t doubt his partner’s word for a second. If Dom didn’t think Alex’s marker would be picked up by another Pyramid assassin, then Gray believed it. But again his gut—not facts—told him this was connected. He just didn’t know how.
As he threw on a leather bomber jacket and grabbed his keys, his instincts began firing on all cylinders. He jerked open the door to his condo and paused. There was one possibility they hadn’t considered.
Slamming the door behind him, Gray hoped to hell he was wrong. If he was right, Nicky was in deep trouble.
And Alex’s nightmare was only beginning.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Before the taxi rolled to a complete stop, Alex and Daisy were out the door and running up the front steps of Nicky’s school. As she ran, Alex wiped away the tears, but they just kept coming.
A marked police car and another large sedan Alex recognized as an unmarked unit were parked adjacent to the school. A door at the top of the stairs opened, and the school’s principal, Mrs. McNally, beckoned them inside.
“Ms. Romano, I’m so sorry.” The principal wrung her hands. “I don’t know how this happened. We have strict security policies that our teachers follow to the letter.”
“Then how the hell did it happen?” Alex couldn’t hide the anger and panic in her voice. “If your policies are so strict, how does a six-year-old boy just disappear from school?”
The principal hung her head, giving Alex a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say. As soon as we confirmed Nicky was truly gone, we notified the police immediately, then called you. Please follow me. Detectives are waiting for you in my office.”
Daisy grabbed Alex’s hand. “Let’s hear what they have to say. I know you’re upset, but let’s focus our energy on trying to help them find Nicky.” Daisy handed Alex a tissue she pulled from her purse.
“Okay.” Alex sniffled and used the tissue to wipe at more tears rolling down her cheeks. “I just can’t believe this is happening.”
Nightmare didn’t begin to describe it.
Four men stood as they entered the principal’s office. Two men wore uniforms and Alex understood the other two men in suits were detectives.